The Guugu Yimithirr are possibly an extreme case, but humans have always relied heavily on directions. The loss of stress on directions seems to be somewhat a modern phenomenon. At least till my grandfather's time it was fairly common for places/land to be associated with directions. For eg. a house would be called "Thekkeparambu" literally Southern field. We have railway stations and bridges that are commonly referred to as South or North. Some cities have places called East End and West End (London comes to mind).